Pope Francis was buried in a ceremony attended by hundreds of world leaders and hundreds of thousands of lay people. Others leave this life unnoticed and are buried with no fanfare. The one thing that we all have in common is that we will all die. But in death, all are not equal. In the Apostle John’s vision, a voice from heaven instructed him to write: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.” Among the several sermons which James Durham preached on these words, one is on the difficult topic of the contrast between those who do and do not die “in the Lord.” Durham confronts us squarely with the misery of those who die “outside of Christ.” The late Pope was deeply religious, widely revered, and had a well established reputation for a form of holiness, humbleness and ordinariness. But God will judge him, along with all the rest of us, on whether or not we are “in Christ.” In the following updated and abridged extract, Durham exposes the dreadfulness of not dying “in Christ,” points out the terrible mistakes we might make about what this means, and urges us to make sure that we belong to Christ.

As the happiness of those who die “in Christ” is inexpressibly great, so the misery and unhappiness of those who do not die in Him is also inexpressible, for they are excluded and shut out from God and from all good, and have his wrath, his furious indignation, and his most severe justice pursuing them for ever and ever.

Excluded from the greatest happiness

They are shut out from the greatest happiness, that is, from the fellowship of God, who is the chief good. They are excluded from conversing with the Lamb, and with the glorious angels and saints. They shall not have one saint in all their company. There is not the least evidence of the love of God among all the thousands in hell, not one drop of cold water to cool the tongue of any of those who are tormented in these flames. They have judgment without the least mixture of mercy (Jam. 1:13), and that for ever without intermission. They shall never have the least glimmering of light nor the least mitigation of their pain, but they shall have no rest night nor day.

Worst of all, they have no way out, or hope of it. They lie in utter desperation under that felt eternal torment. It would be some lightening to the damned in hell if their torment were to continue only for some thousands of years, or even only for some millions of thousands of years (as poor Spira said, it would have been a comfort to him if hell had only been for 20,000 years), but it is for ever.

Put under the greatest misery

Looking at the other side of it, they are in this hopeless condition under the greatest misery, drinking for ever of the wine of the wrath of God without mixture in the cup of His indignation. This is both their food and their drink.

If only we were serious in speaking and hearing and thinking of these things! The difference is both great and strange — instead of sharing in the glory of God, of Christ, and of His angels, they will be sharing the torment of the devil and his angels. If it is a real evil, and indeed the very worst condition, for a person to be full of enmity against God, and to have God an everlastingly irreconcilable enemy furiously pursuing His quarrel, without all passion in Him, yet with dreadful horror in the person who is thus plagued, words cannot express how inconceivably evil and miserable is the condition of those who die out of Christ (not to mention the danger that many of you are in).

I exhort you not to think that it is of little concernment how you die. Do not think that it is something unworthy of your most serious and painstaking endeavours to be made sure on good grounds that you will die in the Lord. And there is no way to achieve this but by being, living, and dying in Christ.

Mistakes about dying well

Many are exceedingly mistaken about what it means to “die in the Lord.”

1. They think if they can die without any public scandal or known sin, and if they keep up their good opinion of themselves all the way to their grave (as if it were enough to say, “Lord, Lord, open to us”), and if they can go away calmly and quietly (like those spoken of in Psalm 73, who “have no bands in their death”), then all is well and they die well. But this is a great mistake.

2. They think they die well if they die with a sort of hope that it shall be well with them. They will argue this toughly. When Christ comes and tells them they are beguiled, they hardly believe Him, and will toughly dispute it. “What? Have we not eaten and drunken in thy presence? Have we not been at many sermons and communions? We have always had a good hope towards God, and why should we now fear death?” What strong presumption some die with!

3. Some think that if they can die after some prayers and convictions and what they think to be repentance, all will be well. If these things were real, that would be good, but many people egregiously play the hypocrite. Not a few fancy that they have the grace of repentance because they have some sadness for sin, or some little anxiety, or a few challenges of conscience. Yet they never seriously got to grips with the corruption of their nature, and the quarrel that God has with them, and they never fled to Christ for refuge.

4. Some make up their own standards for themselves, and if they are good citizens, and religious in some way or another, they think they are all right. O! sad mistake!

Mistakes about a good death

First, to “die in the Lord” is not to die in external quietness, with all our friends about us, or in a sort of calmness, with little pain or sickness. Many heathens, many sophisticated and civilised people, and many hypocrites, have died that way. This is only a common outward thing. Many may, and do, slip quietly into the pit.

Second, neither is it to be much taken up with bare wishes and desires to die in the Lord, or even putting a high value on dying in the Lord. It is good, as far as it goes, to wish and desire it and value it, but even Balaam could go that far, yet he had a most miserable exit, and made a very wretched end. Many folks will now and then commend dying in the Lord when in a good mood.

Nor, thirdly, is it to have some lukewarm prayers to die in the Lord, and to be good friends with God, as we say. No one is so graceless but, seeing they must leave the world, would rather be in heaven than in hell, and will readily have some words of prayer for it. But that will not do. “Many will seek to enter, who shall not be able” (Luke 13:24), and many will pray to be taken to heaven who never walked, neither loved to walk, in the right way to it.

Nor, fourthly, is it to be painstaking in the externals of holiness. To be hearing sermons, and frequenting communions, if that is all, will not do. It will not be sufficient that you heard Christ preach and sat at the same table as Him. Half of holiness is no holiness. To be almost a Christian will not make a Christian, you need to be a Christian altogether.

Fifithly, it is not dying with an unfounded persuasion in our own mind that we are in Him and that all shall be well. Many take it that they are in a good and safe condition, just because they believe it, and imagine that it is so. They are very unwilling and loathe to let themselves think ill of themselves. We need what will abide God’s examination, and it is not he that commends himself, but he whom God commends, who will stand the trial.

How to have a happy death

If you want to have the blessedness of those who die in the Lord, three things are necessary antecedents.

1. To make your peace with God through faith in Christ. See well to it that you are not living with a standing quarrel between God and you, for it is by faith that we are united to Him, and without faith we cannot be in Him, and so cannot possibly die in Him.

2. Not only to have faith in Christ, and our peace made with God through Him, but to know that we have it, to know in whom we have believed. It is true that this is not essential, as the former, yet it is hardly possible to die comfortably and confidently without it. That is why Christians are exhorted, “Give diligence to make your calling and election sure” (2 Pet. 1).

3. To be exercised to keep a good conscience in all things, and always towards God and towards men. Ordinarily it is impossible to die well unless you have endeavoured seriously and single-mindedly to keep a good conscience throughout your life, and to square your life according to the rule of the Word, and walk in a way that is fitting for a Christian.

All these three are put together by the Apostle Peter. Peter wants his readers to add to their faith the exercises of the other graces of the Spirit, then he exhorts them to give diligence to make their calling and election sure. By so doing, he assures them that an entrance shall be ministered to them to the everlasting kingdom (2 Pet. 1). It is as if he said, “By fastening your faith on Christ by the exercise of grace, and by studying to make your calling and election sure by well doing, at death a wide open door shall be made to you to enter into heaven, and you shall have the greater comfort and confidence to lay down your life.” When Christians neglect the fixing of their faith, the exercise of grace, and the making of their calling and election sure, then their entry is narrow and difficult, and those who neglect these things altogether find the door quite shut, and no entry at all.

If no more was spoken but these three words — (1) to be in Christ by faith, (2) to live in him by the exercise of faith and other graces, keeping a good conscience towards God and men, and (3) to make your calling and election sure — they would furnish you with work and duty to occupy you all your days.

These words may also serve to convince and reprove many who vainly entertain themselves with the hope and expectation of dying in Christ, but do not at all betake themselves to this way of being and living in Him — the way of going with a mourning face and a stopped mouth to the throne of grace, and heartily embracing Christ’s offer, being content to adhere to Him for righteousness, and utterly to renounce their own righteousness, and then in a way of diligence in duty, and by the fruits of a new nature and life, evidencing their union with Him.

This is the very heart and substance of what we should be doing, and the hinge of our salvation. We need the right exercise of faith for righteousness, the right exercise of grace for sanctification, and the right setting of ourselves (before death comes) to have the grounds of our part in Christ sure and clear. 

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